Tag Archives: census

Where was my grandmother… on the night of Sunday 2 April, 1911? She wasn’t at home with her parents and sisters, which is a surprise because she was only 13.

I know she wasn’t at home because I’ve just looked her up on the 1911 Census. An alluring and expensive way of spending an evening. I’m a huge fan of the National Archives (their podcasts are exceptional) and they have done a superb job with the census site. I hate to think how long it took and how much it cost to transcribe those millions of lines of scrawly manuscript. So I really cannot begrudge them their money. I’d have happily spent an evening cyber-stalking my ancestors if I could have done it for free, and the seven quid I spent has enabled me to turn turn up some mysteries. I think I may have just discovered an expensive new hobby.

Three things are odd about the census transcript for my great-grandfather’s household.

They weren’t living where I thought they were. They certainly owned the house on the hill both before and after 1911, so why wasn’t the family there at the time?

Then their youngest daughter is shown as being 26 years old in 1911. I’m almost certain she was two or three years younger than grandma, not 13 years older.

And finally, as I mentioned, my grandmother and her brother were away from home that night.

It turns out she was at school, and the jpeg of the entry for the school showed me a couple of other interesting things.

Her 15 and 16 year old classmates had their marital status recorded, which looks decidedly odd in the middle of a list of school-girls. The choices were “Single, Married, Widower or Widow” which is quaint in itself.

One of her classmates had the same name as my godmother – so I find myself wondering if our grandmothers were school-fellows.

It would be expensively easy to click “buy more credits” again and again and five mysteries for a fiver isn’t bad going really. But I’ll resist and savour the unknowingness. Though I might get in touch with siblings and cousins to see what they think.